


Book Ends

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Glass Cannon Blues [7]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Relationship, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Personal Canon, Pre-Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: The end of a journey can be triumphant and filled with sunshine, glory and sparkles flying.Too bad Cheren's really didn't end this way. Quite the opposite, actually.(Is part of a personal canon series, but can be read as a standalone or an introduction to the series).
Relationships: Bel | Bianca/Cheren
Series: Glass Cannon Blues [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657786
Kudos: 4





	Book Ends

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was started, I kid you not, in May, and it was meant to be in another tone altogether. It was supposed to be more on the fluffy side, with Cheren actually explaining to his students how he met Stoutland, stuff like that, with little conversations interrupting the flow for clarification. Now, why it shifted into mostly angsty ChereBeru is because 1. we don't have enough of this ship that isn't them filling background space 2. I re-read "Je viens de là" and got inspired by its amazing writing. Yes, you can blame a crusty-ass Franco-Italian cartoon about street soccer for this angst piece's new nature.  
> I actually planned on providing more answers to the questions this story brings up, but I think I'll do it in a separate story. It just didn't make sense with the pacing or setting here imo, so look forward to that, I guess. I've been in severe GCB brainrot lately, so I'll probs be on a roll with my usual weird Pokémon fic-ness.  
> I also went ham on my alternate character interpretations, so you may find the following story OOC. Reader discretion is advised.

How he ended up in this situation is a bit beyond him. He’s lost in the middle of some route, unable to remember its number. One? Two? Forty-five and counting? Doesn’t matter. Going back to check feels like a waste of time. The combination of trees, grass and more (but taller and darker) grass just doesn’t help him guess where in Unova he could possibly be. He’ll know by the end of the route, he supposes… if he ever sees it, that is.

It feels like this journey has no end, now that the first thing he tried to accomplish there escaped from his grip and flew far, far away from him, the failure.

He’s positively freezing despite the warm summer beaming all over Unova. He can tell by the blurry silhouettes he sees of Trainers complaining about feeling hot, trying their best to cool themselves down, while he just stares at them feeling envious because, unlike them, he’s being rattled by uncontrollable urges to shiver himself out of his skin.

Well, to be fair, he’d like to have any excuse to leave said skin, even if he wasn’t feeling so cold in the middle of the hot season where the wind doesn’t blow through the trees and where the raging sun digs into his eyes as if they didn’t hurt enough already. His situation, at the moment, is nothing short of a nightmare he tries to hope he can one day exit, even if that’d actually require talking to someone, actually acknowledging all the flaws he has.

There are a lot of them, after all. He’s overzealous, overly proud and pedantic. He’s a no-nonsense, no-joke worrywart who never knows when he should zip it and let things slide. Obsessed with power, he’s now powerless, as his entire team is fainted or, in the case of Serperior, on the brisk of fainting. He’s barely holding it together and, if he’s honest, he’s not fairing much better. The vertigo is almost impossible to fight against, and yet, he marches on.

He marches on because there’s nothing else he can do, at the moment. He’s walking, head hanging low, breathless with a chance of coughing fits exiting his mouth from time to time, thoughts full yet feeling empty at the same time. It’s like they’re all so heavy, yet don’t make sense by themselves or when he tries putting them together. No matter what he does or how he thinks, the puzzle just can’t be solved, so he gives up, stops to cough or ignore the disgraceful state he’s in, and resumes walking while trying to put back together his fragmented mind.

It never works in the exact same way none of his plans have worked out in his favour lately.

His jacket is sticking so much to his skin that it’s starting to feel cold around his forearms. His shirt is too thin not to let the gentle wind get through the soaked fabric and freeze him even further. He may be in a gentle meadow with children playing in the surroundings and their Pokémon, or maybe their families’, protecting them from any potential harm.

It’s strange how dangerous this low-level tall grass suddenly scares him when he shouldn’t be afraid of Lillipups and Purrloins, but now that he’s all by himself and in such a weakened state, he can’t deny not wanting to even cross eyes with any potential assailant. It’s merely survival instinct not to want to be hurt when in a state of vulnerability, after all, and he doesn’t want to completely white out in case Serperior can’t handle its burn for long enough.

Everything feels distant, as if he’s not even living anymore. Maybe he’s already dead and was too delirious to notice it. That’d explain why the voices around him are all muffled, vague and unintelligible: they’re just inventions of his mind as it roams through Unova, aimless and lost, without a destination to pursue because there’s nothing left for him, in a way. He’s most likely nothing more than a future Yamask at this point.

(It’s weird that he’s associating himself with a child he just isn’t anymore – an inhumane fever does that to a man, he guesses).

He wonders if someone is going to search for the body he’ll leave behind. Hilbert and Hilda are already gone, having headed somewhere else altogether as soon as they won against N, going after him like he was a ghost haunting their minds. Juniper is way too busy being a professor to even realize he’s gone without completing his Dex (frankly, that thing was the least of his worries). His parents will most likely think he’s just continued his journey: they never even called once to know where he was, too busy, too preoccupied. They ran out of time long, long ago.

( _Bianca_. Bianca will search for him now that Hilda and Hilbert have left the both of them behind. She’ll probably cry over his disappearance once the reality will have settled in. Poor, poor Bianca would be the last one of their group left).

His legs give in, his head meeting the dirt and the grass. He didn’t realize until now that he had strayed from the path and got into the tall patches of grass. He doesn’t really know if he should get up and continue walking, since there’s barely a point to it, but it’d at least seems like he’s alive: a spirit can’t really trip on its own legs and lose all of its balance like he just did.

(Something feels like home, nearby, somewhat, but he’s not sure if there’ll be anyone to meet him there, or if there’s ever been anyone that’s still around and ready to open their arms to him despite all the bad things he’s done and all the terrible decisions he’s made).

He’s a grown-up, now, so he should do like all grown-ups do and remember what chore he’s got left to do. He needs to at least bring his team to the nearest Centre – he at least owes them all that – so he better get on going… but his arms won’t respond, too slow, too weak, and he just slams back to the ground. Even this mere failed try seems to have exhausted whatever energy he had left, since he can’t find the strength in him to get up anymore.

Is this really going to be how it all ends for him? With him lying in a puddle of his own sweat, surrounded by tall grass and low-level Pokémon he should’ve never been scared of after the first Gym he beat? With him merely leaving himself to die, as if he didn’t have some future ahead of him in virtue of his age? As if he was a poor sick boy, left in the rain, defenceless, when he still has duties to attend to?

He doesn’t find the energy to get angry over his fate and, instead, settles for crying himself to sleep, one last time. He’s been angry at everything and everyone for so long that he just doesn’t have any left for his final day, how sad. How sad… How sad…

He can barely register a Lillipup sniffing him before the last of his energy caves in, his eyes close and he loses consciousness for one last time.

…

_…ren?_

Voices?

_A… yo… wake… che…?_

Definitive. Those are voices, and vaguely familiar ones at that.

_Can you hear me, Cheren?_

He doesn’t need to open an eye to know who is addressing him, but he does so anyway just to prove he’s still, again all chances, _alive_ , and to check the accuracy his theory. Sure enough, even though the light burns as soon as he does so, it is indeed Bianca who is hovering over him, almost uncomfortably close to his face. It doesn’t point it out, mostly because he doesn’t have the energy to do it.

Once he gets used to the sudden outburst of light, he can finally observe his surroundings, which prompts him to realize he recognizes his surroundings: they’re in _his_ bedroom, in _his_ house. He’s in _his_ bed, which Bianca most likely sitting on _his_ desk chair. How did he get here? Why was she so diligently waiting for him to wake up when he’s spent his time being so mean to her, to tell her every little petty thing that was passing through his mind?

Oh, sweet Hero of Unova, his head hurts way too badly to badger himself with unanswered questions. This isn’t the time, even if he can’t deny being curious about some details.

“Phew, you’re here! I got so scared you know!” Bianca continues speaking, giggling in relief.

“How… did I get here…?” is the first thing to exit his mouth. Not a “hello”, not a “thank you”: “how did I get here?”. And he wondered why people thought of him as a nuisance.

“Well, it’s a long story, but in short, you owe it to this little guy!”

She picks something from the floor up. It’s only when she shows it to him that he realizes it’s actually a someone: in her arms is a little Lillipup with a distinct spot under the left eye, who proceeds to bark once. It’s oddly familiar, for some reason he can’t establish…

“Huh…?”

“He found you and went to fetch me! Since then, he’s stayed by your bed, so I think he really likes you.”

“You’re gonna have to explain it better than that, Bianca…”

He barely has the time to sit up to put on his glasses (which, as always, are on his nightstand) and drink the glass of water his throat has been eyeing for the past few minutes before Bianca lets go of the Lillipup, who goes to sit on a part of the bed he doesn’t occupy, and tries to keep him down thinking he was going to get out of bed. Not today, Bianca, not today.

“Ah, right, here’s your medicine!” She tells him before handing him a few pills that seem to have come out of nowhere. He doesn’t discuss it at first, merely gulping them along with a spoon of syrup she serves him.

“If you could also tell me more about that,” he coughs loudly into his fist, almost spilling the contents of the glass all over his bedsheets in the process, “please do so.”

Bianca’s face sours as if he said something wrong (to be fair, he probably did, it’s part of his specialties with being able to remember a lot pretty easily and being an all-knowing jackass), as she loses the happy-go-lucky smile she’s had until now. If he isn’t mistaken, she can see her fists clench.

“W-well… I can’t tell you what happened until Lillipup found you. If I had to guess, I’d say he found you on Route 1 in the middle of the tall grass, then went to fetch someone in Nuvema, and happened to scratch at the door of the Lab. That’s when I decided to follow it back to where you were, and there’s that!”

“So you’re telling me this random wild Lillipup went to fetch you…?” That sounds farfetched, but the Lillipup in question is still peacefully lying on his bed. Weird.

“I… don’t think he’s as random as you think, Cheren.” It’s weird how serious she sounds. She’s just never spoken to him like that until the last days of their Unova journeys. “I vaguely remember you telling us about a Lillipup you had brought to the nearest Centre because it was injured. Maybe it’s this one?”

“Bianca, that sounds very…” Before he opens his mouth to say something stupid again, he glances at the Lillipup on his bed once more, only to realize he remembers where he’s seen that specific spot on its fur before. “…likely, actually.”

“Oh, so he repaid his debt to you! Isn’t that adorable?”

She scratches the pup’s head, prompting it to get closer to her. She’s always had this easy touch with Pokémon that, come to think of it, he’s always been at least a bit envious of – there’s a lot about Bianca, Hilbert and Hilda that he just _wishes_ he could have, but to which he’ll never admit. He’s too prideful for that.

“Ha… Thank you,” he tells the Pokémon, who seems pretty content with having his gratitude. If he didn’t feel so exhausted, he’d try being better at thanks. Not that he’s ever been good at doing that, but one can pretend.

For a minute, he believes she’s run out of things to tell him about and may be about to get back to her house, or to the lab, or anywhere but his sweat-smelling room (it stinks enough for him to be able to smell its stench despite his clogged nose); but that’s an error, as her moue doesn’t disappear. No, she seems bizarrely determined for something and, for once, he feels like her mind is impossible to predict.

It’s almost scary how much she’s grown while he wasn’t looking, while he was too busy refusing to deal with his demons until the last moment where all of his delusions shattered, leaving him defenceless and, soon enough, here. Maybe letting him die back in the tall grass was the right idea, and yet, a Lillipup and his childhood friend saved him.

He knew she’d go looking for him would he go missing – he just wouldn’t have ever guessed it’d be so soon. On second thought, that was pompous and assuming she wasn’t fed up with his shenanigans like he had grown to be, but wouldn’t you know, he turned out to be right. That’s got to be a rare occurrence, these days.

“Do you remember how you got to Route 1?” She asks, her fingers tangled together, her gaze unwavering.

“It’s… vague. I was going through Unova in search of something to do, or something like that, and I must’ve fallen sick along the way. I guess I just passed out on Route 1.”

Ha, he feels uncomfortable not knowing everything with knife-sharp precision. That’s got to be his maiden voyage in the world of the unknown. Every word where he admits to himself to being confused leaves a bitter taste of failure in his mouth, similar to the one that got left by all the losses he got against Hilbert and Hilda, the taste that wouldn’t wash away after their last fights before the League, the taste that pursued him throughout Unova.

“Your entire team was fainted or on the brisk of being knocked out. You still had healing items on you. Why not use them?”

She sounds as confused as he is towards his previous actions. He once again wishes he had an answer ready; but he just doesn’t and he won’t ever have one.

“I… don’t know.” A coughing fit tears through his throat, burning. What he brought onto himself isn’t a mere cold, that’s for certain. “I guess I was just too delirious to even realize I had those. Maybe I thought I had used them all already.”

Bianca looks aside, biting her lip.

“It’s not like you to be this careless, Cheren. Me, sure, I’ve always been clumsy and naïve, and Hilda and Hilbert could get reckless, but you? You were always the one who’d tell us to be careful.”

“Things have changed, Bianca,” he snaps back, unintentionally. “Hilda and Hilbert aren’t here anymore, you’ve found a new way, and I… I just did that, I guess.”

“But why, Cheren? That’s what I want to understand! I was so scared when you wouldn’t pick up!”

“…come again…?”

He can’t have heard that properly.

“The prof and I tried to call you multiple times! I wanted to check up on you since you hadn’t come back to Nuvema after the twins went after N, but you never answered… though I think I know the answer.” She picks something from the floor once again, pulling out of his bag his Xtranscriver, which doesn’t boot up when she presses the Start button. “You didn’t charge it at all ever since we last saw each other?”

“I…” Oh Arceus. He can’t even remember that. “I don’t think I did… I’d barely stop in Centres…”

The more he goes on and the more horrified she looks.

“What… What happened to you, Cheren…?”

He stares at his hands, who are now trembling with shivers and chills alike. He knows he shouldn’t be having this conversation now, not when an illness has him under complete submission, but he won’t escape it. He can feel too much anger, too much confusion in her otherwise non-judgemental voice to even _hope_ for an escape door.

So, instead, he picks his head into his hands, tries to ignore his pounding headache, and gathers what little memories are scattered around his mind. There’s no point in pretending like he’s the same guy that he was before enduring so many defeats in the hands of life, not when all he was striving for was just taken away from him the moment he realized he had been wrong along and was just committing mistake and mistake.

“I wandered around Unova in search for a new goal… Didn’t find it, as you can see. Kept having to fight Trainers. Must’ve fallen ill along the way. Did stupid things like anyone without a goal in life would.”

“Why wander, then? You could’ve just come home!”

“I didn’t even think of doing that… L-listen, my brain was in scramble, it still is. I wish I could give you an actual explanation, but—”

He doesn’t finish her sentence before she shoves a thermometer in his mouth, putting her hand on his forehead before taking out the beeping thing out of there and putting a wet cloth where her palm was. It isn’t the first time her touch is cold to him, but it may as well be the only one who doesn’t require him to scramble with his iffy memory.

“I’m… I’m sorry for worrying anyone,” he finally admits, his resolve broken at last. There’s no need for pride anymore.

Bianca didn’t quite expect that, it seems, considering her glance rises from the thermometer’s screen to his face with disbelief written all over her face.

“I shouldn’t be asking you about all this now… You probably want to rest, and I’m just babbling, and—”

“It’s fine. Just… give me a couple days to gather my thoughts on that, okay? I’m… Well, you know more than I do how bad I’m doing right now, no?”

He tries chuckling to his own stupid remark to reassure her, but it doesn’t work, and instead he coughs. Dammit.

“I’m so, so relieved you’re still here, you know? If you had disappeared too, I don’t know what I’d have done…”

“I won’t… Not again.” Not after a Lillipup saved his life and not after she got so worried, that’s for sure.

“I guess I’ve got no choice but to believe you, do I…?” She smiles, albeit it’s a little forced and bittersweet.

“You don’t have to. I did go MIA for days.”

“It’s fine… It’s fine. No problem. We’ll talk about all that another day.”

She sighs, probably in relief.

“The doctor said you caught the flu after getting a cold get worse from overexertion.” She sounds so scientific when she says this, he can’t tell if it’s because she’s trying to fit the shoes of a research assistant or if it’s to distance herself from the reality of things. “You’ll be okay, though. I believe it! We’ve both gone through so much that I just know you won’t let that win. Not when you’ve still got your way to find, right?”

“Yeah… You’re right.” He finds himself genuinely smiling for the first time in forever.

He doesn’t find the audacity to tell her “don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” so he just lies back into the pillow. He forgot how draining illness can get when you don’t have to focus on surviving.

“Take a good rest, now, okay? Your parents are downstairs and I’ll be in the lab, so if you need someone, just ask the lil’ guy!” Lillipup barks once in reply, visibly pleased with its new assignments. “Our big talk can wait, so don’t worry about it for now.”

He takes off his glasses and nods in response, already feeling himself sinking into slumber.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve all of her warmth, but for now, he’ll cling onto it because he spent too much time being cold in the open. Maybe he’ll also regret it later down the lines, but the future will have to wait for him to get better – everything will, actually, as much as it’d have upset him before. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to cling onto.

Remind him to ask Lillipup to join his team later. He could be the symbol of a new chapter of his life, if he accepted. That’d be quite the rebirth, wouldn’t you say?


End file.
